Thursday, January 29, 2015

Another example of Herbie Mann's quest for new playing
environments leading him to follow another trend, in this case the disco music
coming out of Germany in the mid-to-late seventies. Co-producer and arranger
Sylvester Levay had been behind the dance-floor success of Silver Convention,
including their big hit, "Fly, Robin, Fly," and was involved with the
German electronic and techno genres. On Bird in a Silver Cage, he surrounds
Mann with a string ensemble from the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, provides an
insistent disco beat, tacks on some inane background vocals and lets the flute
master fly over top. This works fine on the title track and on
"Birdwalk," a classic of the Mann repertoire of this era, but
"Aria" is awful, and "The Piper" is a piece of generic
disco in search of John Travolta and the spinning mirror ball. ~ Jim Newsom

HORACE SILVER - 12 CLASSIC ALBUMS 1953 - 1962

Horace
Ward Martin Tavares Silva, born September 2, 1928, was an American jazz pianist
and composer. Influenced by a wide range of musical styles, notably gospel,
African music, and Latin American, Silver also ventured into the soul jazz
genre.Silver's big break came in 1950 backing saxophonist Stan Getz at The
Sundown Club in Hartford, Connecticut. It was with Getz that Silver made his
recording debut, for the 1950 Stan Getz Quartet album. Silver moved to New York
City in 1951, where he worked at the jazz club Birdland on Monday nights, when
different musicians would come together and informally jam. During that year he
met the executives of the Blue Note label while working as a sideman. He
eventually signed with them, remaining there until 1980. In New York, he
co-founded the Jazz Messengers, a cooperatively-run group with Art Blakey. In
1952 and 1953 Silver recorded three sessions with his own trio, featuring
Blakey on drums and Gene Ramey, Curly Russell and Percy Heath on bass. Silver
was also a member of the Miles Davis All Stars, recording the Walkin' album in
1954. The album Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers was recorded on November
13, 1954 and issued in 1955. It was regarded as a milestone in the development
of hard bop. It featured the mid-tempo blues "Doodlin'" and Silver's
first hit "The Preacher". From 1956 onwards, Silver recorded
exclusively for Blue Note, eventually becoming close to label boss Alfred Lion,
who allowed him greater input on aspects of album production than was usual at
the time. During his years with Blue Note, Silver helped to create the
rhythmically forceful branch of jazz known as "hard bop", which
combined elements of rhythm-and-blues and gospel music with jazz. This 6 CD
compilation features all of Horace Silver's recorded output between the years
of 1952 and 1962, the first, and many would say most productive and challenging,
decade of this masterful composer, performer and musician's career. ~ Amazon

EBERHARD WEBER - ENCORE

Encore is a companion volume to Résumé, the widely-praised
solo album issued in 2011. Eberhard Weber returns once more to the many live
recordings of his tenure with the Jan Garbarek Group, isolating his bass solos
and reworking them into new pieces with the addition of his own keyboard parts.
I became what you might call a composer of New Music, says Weber, with the
proviso that I make use of old things. This season s special guest is veteran
Dutch flugelhorn player Ack van Rooyen. Van Rooyen, who played on Weber s ECM
leader date, The Colours of Chloë more than 40 years ago now adds his own
subtle colors to Weber s contemporary sound-montages. The bass solos were
recorded between 1990 and 2007, in thirteen European cities, from Edinburgh to
Seville, and the music was mixed and edited at Studios La Buissonne in the
South of France in November 2014. ~ Amazon